Alastair Reynolds - Revenger 2 - Shadow Captain

Review.

Shadow Captain is book two in the Revenger series.

The sequel to Revenger. If the monniker YA (Young Adult)  applies to Revenger then this sequel would have to be considered YA as well, but Reynolds is doing his best to blur the line.

Brandon Sanderson - Skyward 1 - Skyward

Review.

Another book in another series. YA, which is fine, but it suffers from an overdose of naivety. Unfortunately.

D&D Forgotten Realms Maps Comparison

RPG

Comparing different versions of a map of a fantasy world?!?

Pretty useless, this, but hey! I always wanted to do this, so when I had a little moment of nothing better to do (actually, lots of other important things to do, but I just wanted to do something useless, for once 😅)...

Cinda Williams Chima - Seven Realms 1 - The Demon King

Review.

The first entry in what appears to be a very long series of romance / fantasy novels. Not sure yet how good or bad they are as a series.

Homematic - Vrije koeling? Zet het raam open! (Dutch)

Domotica + Dutch

De afgelopen weken was het heel warm in Nederland. Maar... wanneer is het nou handig om een raam open te zetten? Wanneer het 1. binnen te warm is, en 2. buiten koeler is dan binnen.

Even naar buiten lopen om in te schatten is een goede methode. Maar wat als we nou toch al een Domotica systeem hebben? 😎

Astrid Scholte - Four Dead Queens

Review.

Thief steals a memory and tries to stop a murderer from killing all four queens.

Okay but not exceptional.

D&D - 5e in NL - Advantage en Disadvantage, Natural 1 en 20 (Dutch)

RPG / 5e in NL / Dutch.

In 5e heb je attack rolls en skill / ability checks.

Hiervoor gooi je een 1d20, en tel je eventueel een bepaalde waarde bij je score, afhankelijk van de situatie en het doel van de rol. 

Linux Mint on Asus EeePc Netbook 1005HA

I am not a Linux expert and never will be.

But this old Netbook that's gathering dust might just get a second chance at life, so I dusted it off and gave it a spin. It once ran Windows XP well but that's no longer an option...

Brian Staveley - The Unhewn Throne - The Emperor's Blades / The Providence of Fire / ...

Review.

I’ve picked up all three on a Dapperite’s suggestion (I think it was Jan, but not entirely sure).  Let’s start with the verdict: a good fantasy trilogy, some new ideas, and an interesting world. Yes, worth reading.

The Secret

Dapper #166 has arrived (yeah, that thing)...

And I personally raised the artist who provided the front cover! Which wasn't easy 😇 (Click on the image to enlarge.)

... But... if you want to commission some artwork, drop me a line. I'll forward it to her and she'll be happy to get in touch with you to work something out.

Dungeons & Dragons - 20 years later... (Dutch)

RPG + 5e in NL + Dutch

Na een jaar of 20 (!) nauwelijks gespeeld te hebben was het afgelopen week zo ver: ik heb (eindelijk) weer een keertje Dungeons & Dragons gespeeld.

Dat was wel even wennen, maar eerlijk gezegd: voor herhaling vatbaar! Volgende week weer!

Battle Angel Alita

Review.

Great popcorn movie, and surprisingly true to its anime / manga roots. It didn’t do very well at the box office, so I fear we’ll never get the sequel it deserves, unfortunately… Still worth watching!

SR7011 - small / large / LFE / Smart Select / Pure Audio (Dutch)

Dutch

De Marantz SR6011 / SR7011 (en waarschijnlijk ook de andere modellen als de SR5011, SR7010, SR7012, SR7013 enzovoorts) hebben een 'Pure' en 'Pure Direct' stand. Maar die werkt net even anders als de soortgelijke functie op de Sony ES serie.

Hier wat algemene informatie over LFE en specifieke informatie over de Marantz apparaten, waaronder Smart Select.

Netflix - The Umbrella Academy

Review.

I’m getting a little superhero- tired. The Umbrella Academy is, fortunately, quirky enough to stay enjoyable. All superheroes involved are adopted (?) gifted kids and part of a grand dysfunctional family.

Alex Hughes - Mindspace Investigations 1 / 2 / 3 - Clean / Sharp / Marked

Review.

He's Harry, Jim, but not as you'd know it.

Sharp and Marked are the sequels to Clean. A future PI, former drug addict, working for the police with unreliable psionic powers, who's trying to escape his past.

MeetUp (Dutch)

RPG + 5e in NL + Dutch

MeetUp is an-sich niet echt bijzonder: een website waar mensen met dezelfde interesse elkaar treffen, en afspraken maken om elkaar in persoon te ontmoeten, maar dan voor hobbies...

M'n dochter noemde het 'Tinder voor nerds'... zucht.

Andrew Seiple - Dire 1 - Dire Born

Review.

What to make of this one... a fresh take on the superhero / super-villain trope, with a villain who might just be a hero. Or not.

Alan Parsons - The Secret

Music

After 15 years of of live concerts, rehashes and other activities Parsons finally went back into the studio and recorded The Secret.

And it’s much better than the previous A Valid Path which was, frankly, a disappointment. This one's much, much better!

Dennis E. Taylor - Bobiverse - We Are Legion / For We Are Many / All These Worlds

Review.

Enjoyable, somewhat nerdy space opera with lots of popular culture references and some hard SF. Include some politics, some aliens, and a twenty first century personality transplanted into a computer brain and you're there.

Cats (The Musical)

Review

Though story-wise it pretty much amounts to nothing, Cats is still a spectacle to behold. So when the London West-End cast visited the Netherlands for a kind of farewell tour I was considering going there. Didn’t go at first, balking at the price of a decent seat.

Obert Skye - Wizard for Hire

Book Review

Since Harry Potter there have been many books inspired by the tale of a young boy becoming something special in a magical setting. Some could be considered 'inspired' by, others are a complete 'rip-off'.

Fortunately, Skye's world and characters might be inspired by (and actually even refer to) the Potterverse, but this is done in a way that actually supports the story, instead of claiming some understanding of pop culture.

Jake Bible - Mech Corps

Review.

I'm not sure what to make of this book. The author Jake Bible wrote a number of series, and this is the first book by his hand that I've read.

I'm just not sure what he tried to write, because it has some promising subplots which are never fleshed out.

Noir

Review.

I've talked about this before I think (and if I did not I should have).

Noir turns out to be a superb series, contemporary setting (well, back in 2000 😄) and somewhat different from other anime. What makes this series stand out is music and style... It oozes style...

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time

Audiobook Review + Adrian Tchaikovsky

A human generation ship returns to a terraformed world where spiders have become the dominating intelligent species. It's a good book though sometimes a little predictable, especially the last two or three chapters.

Still a good read / listen. Not for people who are scared of spiders though 😂

Music was my first love

Music

Today it's all about music... Manage your collection, rip music, play music online, find new stuff, etcetera.

So... Spotify, Jango, Youtube, Gnosic, Music Map, MP3Tag, SQB, and Discog... What else?

Heroes

Review.

With Heroes and Heroes Reborn finished it is time to look back.

What did I think of Heroes when it surfaced, back in 2007?

(Comments taken from older installments of Dapper...)

Jake Bible - Flipside

Review.

In Flipside a group of people travel back in time through a kind of 'time bubble'. The actual flipping mechanism is interesting, and is (of course) abused by (of course) the Russians, who go on to (almost) destroy the world.

Alex Hughes - Mindspace Investigations 1 - Clean

Review.

Now here's a pleasant surprise. I've always been partial to detective stories, and SF or Fantasy 'noir', and this is one of those. On top of that the main character has some special powers (he's a telepath) and is seriously flawed (a former drug addict).

Glynn Stewart - Interstellar Mage

Review.

There are actually two series of books staged in the same universe. Thus far I've only read book one of the second (spin-off) series.

An interstellar mage gets picked up by a freighter captain with history, and the two of them become unwillingly involved in interplanetary conspiracy and piracy.

Craig Alanson - Aces

Review.

The cover blurb says it all: kids are not supposed to rescue their parents. Well, in this case they do.

This is a YA but it's also perfectly suitable for younger kids as well as adults. Entertaining.

Glynn Stewart - Space Carrier Avalon / Stellar Fox / ...

Review.

It’s military space opera, small federation fighting big evil commonwealth, hotshot pilot becomes captain after an accident.

It isn’t bad, but we’ve seen all of this before. (David Weber, anyone?) Fortunately Stewart’s writing and plots are better than, for example, Nuttall’s.

John Scalzi - Old Man's War / The Ghost Brigades

Review.

Turn retirees into cannon-fodder. It's some kind of pension, I guess...

Alan Wake (XBox360 / XBox One)

Gaming. Review.

Remember Alan Wake? In 2010 Remedy Entertainment and Microsoft Studios released Alan Wake for XBox and PC.

That's almost 10 years ago... So... why revisit it?

SqueezeBox - SQB v0.22x

SQB has been updated to 0.22x. It now can launch multiple instances of Sox, vastly improving conversion speed (3 to 4 times faster in typical use scenarios on a Ryzen 12 core processor).

Christoper Nuttall - Fists of Justice / The Gordian Knot / ...

Review.

Nuttall continues.

The guy is productive, I'll give him that. He either makes a lot of money, or needs to write to just come by. I suspect the latter 😊 because we all cannot be like Stephen King 😌

Armageddon

Review.

I did watch The X-Files - Fight The Future a the second time. (The first time back in 1999.) It was disappointing then, and it was still disappointing, 20 years later.

I had better memories of Armageddon and decided to give that one another try as well. The same 20 years later and less disappointing 😊

State of (Remote) Play - PS4 / XBox / Steam

Question...

Assume your console sits in in the living room... and your mother in law has a Tupperware party... and there's this brand new game you smuggled into the house, still hiding in your backpack... then what do you do?

Cary Caffrey - The Girls from Alcyone / The Machines of Bellatrix / Codename: Night Witch

Review.

Cary Caffrey isn't a household name. Not surprising being an indie, self published author, and since 2011 a mere 3 books in his name. (Still that's 3 more than I did! 😇)

3D printing a LED driver enclosure - 1 - What

3D Printing + Domotics + DIY

I always found 3D printing fascinating, but with too many hobbies I just never found the time to delve a bit deeper into yet another timewaster...

Then, a year ago or so, I ran into a heavily discounted Dremel 3D20, and without knowing anything about this printer (or about 3D printing in general) I bought it...

John DeChancie - The Kruton Interface

Review.

DeChancie wrote a spoof on Star Trek, featuring the starship 'Repuls(iv)e' with its not so very capable captain, poor crew, and many references to Star Trek and lawyers...

X-Files - Fight the Future

Review.

In 1999 (wow, that long ago?) I saw the first X-Files movie called Fight the Future.

I wasn't that impressed. I recently re-watched it. I'm still not that impressed. To me it looked like an extra long special episode of the regular TV series.

Time Travel Shows

Time travel will put everyone's brain in a knot...

Here's a list of all shows I know of and / or have watched in which time travel is a major repeating plot element.

Netflix - Travelers Redeemed - Travelers Season 3

Review.

Can a single episode redeem a show? Yes. It can.

Travelers was discontinued on regular television, but it survived on Netflix, and a third (and probably final) season was added.

Game of Thrones - Season 2

Review.

Sorry. I wasn't very impressed with the second season, and would have given up if I did not hear such great things about this series.

So there must be something I'm missing...

Productivity 'on the cheap'

Non-games... or software that helps me to create documents, images, 2D and 3D models, preferably free... Hey, I'm even willing to pay for some of it 😎

This post has been replaced by an updated and dedicated page to the (best) software

E. William Brown - A Perilous Waif / Fimbul Winter

Book Review

I read two different, very different books by the same author. At first I wasn't even sure if it was the same author as these appear to be intended for very different audiences. Why he choose to publish both under the same pen name is a mystery to me.

Because Perilous Waif is fantastic, whilst Fimbulwinter is a piece of shite.

Kodi v18 'Leia'

The new Kodi is here! Keep in mind that, although Kodi looks and works mostly the same, there are some differences between the different platforms, and these may throw you a curve-ball when trying to play movies stored on a local (Windows) server.

Sol Bianca - The Legacy (anime and OST)

Review.

In 2003 I watched the anime series Sol Bianca - The Legacy. I never saw the 90's series it was a sequel to (couldn't find it anywhere) but I remember the sequel itself. Mostly because of the intro song, which was great.

PS3 & PS4 opslagruimte (Dutch)

Gaming + PS4 + Dutch

Ik ben de trotse bezitter van een originele PS4, een eerste generatie model welke me trouw gediend heeft de laatste 3 jaar. Er zijn zijn twee zaken waar ik niet zo'n fan van ben: het geluid en de opslagruimte.

Het geluid heb ik nog niet gefixed (schoonmaken helpt waarschijnlijk) maar het opslag probleem heb ik opgelost, ook al was het soms moeilijk om de juiste informatie te vinden.

How many nukes do we need to destroy the world?

Column.

How many nukes do we need to destroy the world?

That depends…